A diary of my experiences in Eve Online, an online game of Internet Spaceships, pew-pew, trading, thieving, back-stabbing, hunting and exploration

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Mixing It Up Some More: FW Missions

I finally installed the new launcher for Eve yesterday, since they're going to turn off the old one. I immediately panicked as I launched the game and was greeted by the introductory video and Aura saying "Welcome to Eve." It turned out that despite successfully importing my old client settings then launcher didn't think I'd want to use them. *sigh* I figured out the weird popup setting button (the button should stay "down" while the popup is active) and selected the imported data as, yes, the profile I wanted to use, and all was well.

I've written recently about my efforts to have ships ready for use for a wider range of activities and that has been working. It ranges from a PvE Dominix built to take on Besieged Covert sites (still not fully tested) to three copies of my salvaging Imicus stationed in nearby systems for cleaning up after running PvE sites if the mood strikes me. I don't know why it took me so long to realize that I don't have to have just ONE instance of a useful ship!

Faction Warfare Missions

The Gallente are in Tier 3 at the moment and I don't have much LP so I've been looking for ways to run more missions without using a Proteus and a corp-mate mentioned he was solo running level 4 Faction Warfare missions in a stealth bomber. I remembered that CCP had rebalanced this missions for all races a while ago (Reddit discussion here) and wondered how it was going for him? He said the bomber could handle two missions: Dead Men Tell No Tales and The Reprisal. I correctly guessed this was because both missions requires killing just one target, but despite the reduced jamming from the rebalance, it still happened frequently.

We have four FW agents in our home station and I have taken to asking them every day for missions, in case they offer me something close by that I can do. The missions can be as little as 3 jumps from our home and you can ask each agent twice without penalty: you can decline the first offer and delay the second till their 4 hour timer expires, then request again. I had actually never done level 1, 2 or 3 missions so when they came up in a nearby system I went ahead and ran a few. The first paid about 1k LP (about 1M ISK), the second about 3.5k LP and the third about 14k LP. I was able to run them in a Tristan, Algos and Vexor respectively with no special fittings needed.

The serious payout is at level 4: 50k LP per mission. There are ten possible missions and I want to know which I can run without a Proteus. You may remember my earlier post about Cutting The Net being easily completed with a cheap frigate. So when the level 4 agent offered me Dead Men Tell No Tales in a nearby system I took my Nemesis out to see how I went.

I took the second target painter off and put in...damn...I can't remember; it's going to need some more ECCM anyway because I got jammed several times. I had almost killed the target structure when I reached about 10% armor and decided to warp out and repair. After doing so I returned and two more shots completed the mission. I had messed up my entry and not taken advantage of a trick described here wherein you arrived at the site cloaked and get into orbit around the target before starting to shoot. You'll get in a couple of volleys before the rats even start firing at you. I also spent too much time trying to identify the right target because the mission text used a different description of the target than the site did!

I may even set up a clone with low-grade Spur implants to defend against jamming even more. Now that we can switch clones in Citadels with no cool-down timer, why not?!

I now have ways of running three out of the ten possible level 4 missions cheaply: if I take a tour of the dozen or so FW agent station near us I'm likely to get a good haul of well-located missions of all levels. And the home-station agents can be pestered regularly to get a quick-to-run mission every couple of days at least.

Planetary Interaction Update

The new schema (see two posts down) is working well, not only financially but I find myself more relaxed about letting the factories stop occasionally. I'm able to supply all my own raw materials though do occasionally set up a buy order for stuff that I need which is selling cheap. If you watch the P0 market you can find some bargains. For example I bought several million Complex Organisms very cheaply and now don't need to extract so much; I'll just refine it for a while.